[Stoves] forced draft (Re: A Karve 13 August)

Fri Aug 19 23:24:00 CDT 2016

Dear Nikhil,
kitchen utensils and dinner sets (nowadays generally made of stainless
steel) are given to the newly married couple as gifts by the bride's
parents, but I have never seen a cookstove being a part of this category of
items. Not a bad idea though.
Our electricity-less forced draft stoves are not used by householders
because they are too costly for a household that traditionally burns wood
in its kitchen. Also the flame intensity cannot be controlled as
effectively as in a traditional wood burning stove. Such households are
generally situated in rural areas and almost 60% of the woody biomass is
generated in their own farms. The restaurant owners, on the other hand,
have to buy their fuel.  Although the cost of such a stove is high, the
fuel, namely wood, is cheaper than LPG. Thus, if our stove is used daily
for about 6 hours, about three months' saving in the fuel cost would pay
for the stove. Canteens of factories and educational institutes usually
don't use wood burning stoves but go for LPG, in spite its higher cost. At
that scale of cooking it is not the owner but hired cooks, who do the
cooking. They are unionized and would threaten to go on strike, if they are
forced to use wood burning stoves.
Yours
A.D.Karve

***
Dr. A.D. Karve

Chairman, Samuchit Enviro Tech Pvt Ltd (www.samuchit.com)

Trustee & Founder President, Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI)

On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 7:25 PM, Traveller <miata98 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear Dr. Karve:
>
> Thank you so much. I wasn't aware of this entire range - I don't mean to
> pun - and hadn't seen the video before.
>
> I remembered how some charcoal fires used to be run with a hand blower. I
> found a modern version on Amazon.in, here
> <http://www.amazon.in/Grill-Blower-Charcoal-Grills-Fireplaces/dp/B0117F2680>
> .
>
> I imagine there are probably tradeoffs between using more air and
> improving fuel efficiency versus changing the rhythm of cooking.
>
> What types of users like forced draft stoves and why? Is it just that
> restaurants have larger scale and put a premium on quick delivery times?
>
> That may add to Anil Rajvanshi's call for "rural restaurants" or what I
> more generally call "outsourcing the kitchen." With competition and
> regulated labor, commercial cooking may save more lives of humans and
> trees.
>
> Restaurants may also be easier to inspect for emission rates by the Global
> Alliance of Cooking Cops. Along with inspections for food quality and use
> of underage chaiwallas.
>
> I wonder USEPA have a program of testing stoves with fans. Or, for that
> matter, boiling water in different winds. Could also be combined with
> climate change research - as in, "Forecasting Premature Mortality Under
> Different Combinations of Stoves, Winds, and Temperatures."
>
> Making short work of cooking may allow women to fill out surveys.
>
> --
> Seriously, my compliments for a diversity of products. A couple of serious
> questions, if the answer is not commercially sensitive:
>
> a. Any of these stoves given in dowry or wedding gift for five seasons at
> roughly a hundred per season?
> b. Any household customer having bought two or more types of stoves, for
> own use or gift?
>
> Please accept my advance gratitude.
>
> Nikhil
>
>
> ---------
> (India +91) 909 995 2080
>
> On Sun, Aug 14, 2016 at 8:48 AM, Anand Karve <adkarve at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Dear Stovers,
>> we have developed an electricity-less forced draft (ELFD) stove for
>> restaurants. You can watch the working and flame characteristics in a video
>> at www.samuchit.com.
>> Yours
>> A.D.Karve
>>
>>
>> ***
>> Dr. A.D. Karve
>>
>> Chairman, Samuchit Enviro Tech Pvt Ltd (www.samuchit.com)
>>
>> Trustee & Founder President, Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI)
>>
>> On Thu, Aug 4, 2016 at 4:02 PM, Traveller <miata98 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Nikhil Desai again, in response to Heggie:
>>>
>>> 1. Of course a fan-powered stove can be worth somebody's while. An
>>> exhaust fan is worthwhile for ventilation. Both these have been in use for
>>> decades in electrified areas, albeit for larger users. But it is such
>>> "commercial cooking" that, I am willing to wager, has taken off the entire
>>> increment of food/feed/beverage cooking demand in the developing world
>>> (collectively) in the last sixty years.
>>>
>>> Why, a couple of years ago, I found a strange contraption on the side of
>>> a store here in my city in India. It looked like a stove but huge, and was
>>> lying as junk. When I asked, the storekeeper said it was a diesel stove
>>> from the 1940s. I have never seen a diesel stove before or after. He said
>>> something about kerosene rationing and how electric fans made it possible
>>> to use these diesel stoves in the back room kitchen for snacks.
>>>
>>> In many geographies (urban and peri-urban), outsourcing the cooking and
>>> using electric fans - even if not as exhaust, if there are enough windows -
>>> are the first coping mechanisms. Not that you would catch that from blind
>>> followers of published statistics.
>>>
>>> I am not an engineer, but let me put this out for discussion -
>>> combustion temperatures and air flows are the most important elements in
>>>  solid fuel cooking, followed by fuel and vessel characteristics.
>>>
>>> 2. "How do you decide on those figures from this discussion?" (In
>>> response to my "do you think woodstoves with PV-battery fans may be able to
>>> capture >1% of the cooking energy market in a developing country 10 years?")
>>>
>>> Well, why not? What would it take to map out the economic geography of
>>> cooking and claim, "Ah, for those areas that can't be supplied with liquid
>>> or gaseous fuels, and where PV penetration potential for small battery
>>> electricity is high, what would a 200 Wp solar system be able to do, and
>>> what is the total potential market in 10 years?
>>>
>>> The food markets are increasingly inter-connected, nationally and
>>> globally. So are the markets for electric kettles, rice cookers, toasters.
>>>
>>> WE the Missionaries of Dung, Straw, Husk, and Twigs from the Church of
>>> Renewable Biomass can complain, "Oh, that's for the rich;  we have taken
>>> vows of chastity (no fossil fuels) and poverty (no electricity)." The poor
>>> in the mean time, get rich and start sinning.
>>>
>>> Just today the Wall Street Journal has an amazing story - The Rice
>>> Cooker Has Become a Test of China’s Ability to Fix Its Economy
>>> <http://www.wsj.com/articles/as-exports-decline-china-looks-inward-for-growth-selling-made-in-china-goods-to-the-middle-class-1470238429>
>>> . Back 30 years ago, I had computed rice cooker penetration rates in
>>> Japan and Korea, then derived projections of electricity demand for urban
>>> China by 2000 using, among other things, rice cookers. (As also clothes
>>> washers, irons.)
>>>
>>> With a million dollar grant, I will calculate gains in life years
>>> (DALYs) from 1980 to 2010 due to electric rice cookers.  Modern coal power
>>> is a wonderful boon.
>>>
>>> I didn't allow for heating milk; had no idea China will become such a
>>> huge producer and importer of milk. The market for kitchen appliances,
>>> <http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/indonesia-kitchen-appliances-market-to-grow-at-cagr-16-till-2021-techsci-research-report-588142792.html>
>>> processed foods, and restaurant meals, has left all the "improved
>>> woodstoves" at the mercy of stubborn poor.  What are GACCers yakking on and
>>> on for?
>>>
>>> Our sin is, we keep on talking "stoves", not "foods", "peoples",
>>> "tastes." Woodstove programs for the rural poor households have burned the
>>> meals. They keep poor people poor. (Charcoal, coal and processed wood are
>>> exceptions).
>>>
>>> For a change, we might start talking about service standards,
>>> objectives, market definitions, and serving the poor instead of saving
>>> them. That would require thinking of the whole food and cooking "system" as
>>> Dr. Kishore said in the Up in Smoke news item.
>>>
>>> There is probably a niche market for PV-battery woodstoves and also for
>>> PV-induction cooking.
>>>
>>> The question is not "price/demand curve as electricity gets cheaper",
>>> but rather as electricity gets RELATIVELY cheaper, all user costs
>>> considered.
>>>
>>> I am going out and venture another guess -- at 7 USc/kWh (tax-inclusive
>>> average tariff in India) grid electricity, baking bread and making rice
>>> with electricity is cheaper than with low-quality wood at 14 USc/kg or 30
>>> USc/kg charcoal (again, average urban price in India). That is on fuel cost
>>> basis and without credit for convenience and cleanliness that some users
>>> are likely to prefer.
>>>
>>> I don't think electricity price "would have to fall a lot before cooking
>>> with electricity becomes economic". I have been saying for 20+ years that
>>> for certain parts of urban Africa, electricity is cheaper than LPG and
>>> charcoal is not an option. So go electric, solar (water heating), gas
>>> (large cities), or eat out.
>>>
>>> That would still leave about 500 million households in the world reliant
>>> on solid fuels.  What options have the biomass stovers given them yet?
>>> (Xavier Brandao had the right question.)
>>>
>>> Nikhil
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ---------
>>> (India +91) 909 995 2080
>>>
>>> On Wed, Aug 3, 2016 at 2:58 AM, <ajheggie at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> [Default] On Tue, 2 Aug 2016 16:16:50 +0530,Traveller
>>>> <miata98 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> >Well, do you think woodstoves with PV-battery fans may be able to
>>>> capture
>>>> >1% of the cooking energy market in a developing country 10 years?
>>>> That's
>>>> >huge, and more than any improved woodstove has in the last 50 years.
>>>>
>>>> How do you decide on those figures from this discussion?
>>>>
>>>> My inference from recent discussions here  was that a small PV
>>>> solar-battery combination was more likely to be cost effective than a
>>>> TEG IF it was decided that a fan powered stove was "worthwhile".
>>>> >
>>>> >For one, the SE4All campaign is about "universal access" to electricity
>>>> >(and "clean cooking", whatever that means). And even then, it is
>>>> becoming
>>>> >clear that there is a pico-PV battery market for phone, laptop, fan,
>>>> for
>>>> >mobile applications or a host of other appliances. Adding another
>>>> battery
>>>> >may improve the utilization rates for PV system investments, which then
>>>> >lower the cost of outages on the grid if there is a grid connection.
>>>> (I am
>>>> >betting that at any given time, a fourth of the grid-connected
>>>> households
>>>> >in developing countries have a grid failure. No use pumping diesel
>>>> power in
>>>> >the grid or generate diesel power if small uses can be taken care of by
>>>> >batteries.)
>>>>
>>>> I come from a country with a well established and reliable grid so I
>>>> can only but imagine what I might value of the utility of a small
>>>> amount of electricity. I suggest that powering a smart phone and
>>>> lighting would be high on that agenda but it would be interesting to
>>>> see the price/demand curve as electricity gets cheaper, I think it
>>>> would have to fall a lot before cooking with electricity becomes
>>>> economic. My cooking is almost exclusively done with electricity but
>>>> that cost is a very low percentage of my income.
>>>>
>>>> AJH
>>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>
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